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Visions of Cody
Kerouac's classic fictional tribute to Neal Cassady. Many years before its first unabridged publication, 'Visions of Cody' became an underground classic. Written by Kerouac at his creative zenith, the book is a celebration of the life of Neal Cassady, his great friend and inspiration. Appearing here as Cody Pomeray, Cassady was also immortalised as Dean Moriarty in 'On the Road'. The son of a drunken Denver drop-out, brought up homeless and motherless during the Depression, Cassady lived his life raw -- hustling in pool halls, stealing cars for marathon joy rides across the States, living wild and penniless amongst society's misfits and outcasts. He left a sizzling reputation in his wake, becoming the insane Beat Demon of San Francisco. Through him Kerouac created one of the few lasting heroes of 20th-century literature and established himself in the great tradition of American letters.
464 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
About the author
Jack Kerouac
375 books10.6k followersAutobiographical novels, such as
On the Road
(1957) and
The Dharma Bums
(1958), of American writer Jack Kerouac, originally Jean-Louis Kerouac, embody the values of the Beat Generation.
Career of Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac began in the 1940s but did not met with commercial success until 1957, when he wrote and published On the Road. The book, an American classic, defined the Beat Generation.
As his friend and contemporary, William S. Burroughs once wrote, "Kerouac opened a million coffee bars and sold a million pairs of Levis to both sexes. Woodstock rises from his pages."
Career of Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac began in the 1940s but did not met with commercial success until 1957, when he wrote and published On the Road. The book, an American classic, defined the Beat Generation.
As his friend and contemporary, William S. Burroughs once wrote, "Kerouac opened a million coffee bars and sold a million pairs of Levis to both sexes. Woodstock rises from his pages."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 161 reviews
September 27, 2011
What can I say? As much as I love Kerouac for all that he has meant for literature and counter culture, this book was too experimental for me to enjoy. And I love experimentation! It helps keep literature fresh, interesting, and evolving. Even so, I thought that The Visions of Cody needed more structure...because there was practically none. There was no story. No narrative. No plot. No development of character. It wasn't about ANYTHING.
The first section felt like a collection of unrelated creative writing exercises---What do you see right now? Describe it. That type of exercise. So we get descriptions of city streets, strangers, cafes, diners, brick buildings, and glowing neon signs. This is the stuff that inspires Kerouac in its raw form. But great artists take that raw material and shape it into something tangible. This is where craft comes in. The ability to perfect one's craft is what separates the good artists from the bad ones.
Then we get a 150 pg transcript of a series of conversations between Jack, Neal, and friends. It didn't bother me that they were drunk, stoned, and high on benzies. It bothered me that they were incoherent ramblings. It was impossible to follow without references. There was no context other than the little the reader knows about their lives. I thought it was a cool idea, but I found it very frustrating instead. The most I could get out of it is that they were getting fucked up talking about old times when they were getting fucked up. Following this is an "imitation of the tape" which was even more confusing and incoherent. Truthfully, by this point I had lost patience, skimmed through the rest, and gave up.
Besides the incoherent ranting and disjointed musings, I found myself reacting to Jack and Neal's reckless lifestyle---mainly the drug abuse. I lost some of the romanticism that I attributed to the beats. Jack died of alcoholism in his 40's. Neal died in his 40's as well, most likely because of drugs. I read a quote in which Neal was giving advice to a 19 year old kid: "Twenty years of fast living – there's just not much left, and my kids are all screwed up. Don't do what I have done." As I find myself growing older and maturing the concept of BALANCE is becoming extremely important to me. Listen, I think it's healthy to experiment with drugs and open new doors of perception, to live life passionately and intensely, to question authority and reject many of the social norms in our society that seem to trap people and suffocate their spirit. But once you get to a certain level of awareness, you cannot evolve further doing the same shit all the time. Sooner or later, that behavior becomes self destructive, and it's important to find healthy alternatives to continue to evolve mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
The first section felt like a collection of unrelated creative writing exercises---What do you see right now? Describe it. That type of exercise. So we get descriptions of city streets, strangers, cafes, diners, brick buildings, and glowing neon signs. This is the stuff that inspires Kerouac in its raw form. But great artists take that raw material and shape it into something tangible. This is where craft comes in. The ability to perfect one's craft is what separates the good artists from the bad ones.
Then we get a 150 pg transcript of a series of conversations between Jack, Neal, and friends. It didn't bother me that they were drunk, stoned, and high on benzies. It bothered me that they were incoherent ramblings. It was impossible to follow without references. There was no context other than the little the reader knows about their lives. I thought it was a cool idea, but I found it very frustrating instead. The most I could get out of it is that they were getting fucked up talking about old times when they were getting fucked up. Following this is an "imitation of the tape" which was even more confusing and incoherent. Truthfully, by this point I had lost patience, skimmed through the rest, and gave up.
Besides the incoherent ranting and disjointed musings, I found myself reacting to Jack and Neal's reckless lifestyle---mainly the drug abuse. I lost some of the romanticism that I attributed to the beats. Jack died of alcoholism in his 40's. Neal died in his 40's as well, most likely because of drugs. I read a quote in which Neal was giving advice to a 19 year old kid: "Twenty years of fast living – there's just not much left, and my kids are all screwed up. Don't do what I have done." As I find myself growing older and maturing the concept of BALANCE is becoming extremely important to me. Listen, I think it's healthy to experiment with drugs and open new doors of perception, to live life passionately and intensely, to question authority and reject many of the social norms in our society that seem to trap people and suffocate their spirit. But once you get to a certain level of awareness, you cannot evolve further doing the same shit all the time. Sooner or later, that behavior becomes self destructive, and it's important to find healthy alternatives to continue to evolve mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
October 26, 2015
This was one of the hardest books for me to rate. Jack Kerouac was one of the most magnificent prose writers; that is something I firmly believe. I also believe that some of the best examples of his prolific, dynamic prose can be found in Visions of Cody. The reason for my three star rating is simply the long winded passages connecting those incredible sections of prose. If you want Jack Kerouac in all his glory, read this book. But he makes you work for those moments of magic and there are many, many passages in this novel that I think it would work perfectly well without. But by the time I reached the end, the last few pages had me in bits. Not only were the descriptions so vivid and tangible, but the raw emotion pounded out of those pages. One of the most interesting relationships that came out of the Beat Generation was that of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, and this book goes a long way to explore Jack's feelings for Neal.
April 19, 2011
One
of
three
books most influencial
that
I
will Never
finish
TOO
good to finish
always more in store
take it in take it out take it to take two or more
it I
for feel
a it
test saying
thought things
I
hear
it
feeling
things
it
couldn't
say
of
three
books most influencial
that
I
will Never
finish
TOO
good to finish
always more in store
take it in take it out take it to take two or more
it I
for feel
a it
test saying
thought things
I
hear
it
feeling
things
it
couldn't
say
September 13, 2012
this book is a lyrical trip.
if you're afraid of getting in too deep, don't bother trying.
too many adjectives or clauses, but really, that's just the point.
pass the tea already.
if you're afraid of getting in too deep, don't bother trying.
too many adjectives or clauses, but really, that's just the point.
pass the tea already.
September 19, 2017
When Jack Kerouac typed out On The Road it was on an endless scroll of paper, as if to indicate that he was writing on an endless path of paper about being "on the road". It was a wild concept, but the result was a somewhat structured work about wanderlust and all its wonders. Visions of Cody fulfills the endless scroll concept, and as indicated by many reviews here the effect is somewhat taxing.
But it really isn't. I don't believe Kerouac wanted Visions of Cody to be read page by page and cover to cover. I think as if hitching a ride form one town to another the reader is recommended to pick up the book, read a few pages, put it down, and start back up again a few days later, bit by bit. Unorthodox, but this isn't a narrative novel. There's a lot of free associating here, and stronger readers will hang in there.
I really liked the almost pop art descriptions of roadside diners with their cheap tin frames and food smells and the colors of the menus. The exhaustive details he gives the newsstands and bars of Manhattan have a Rosenquist/Rauschenberg style cartoon collage effect. You can almost breathe in this book. His recollections of Cody could be any generic American boy; there's a great universality in every sentence. Visions of Cody is the kind of work that sets him alongside Whitman and his hero, Jack London.
But it really isn't. I don't believe Kerouac wanted Visions of Cody to be read page by page and cover to cover. I think as if hitching a ride form one town to another the reader is recommended to pick up the book, read a few pages, put it down, and start back up again a few days later, bit by bit. Unorthodox, but this isn't a narrative novel. There's a lot of free associating here, and stronger readers will hang in there.
I really liked the almost pop art descriptions of roadside diners with their cheap tin frames and food smells and the colors of the menus. The exhaustive details he gives the newsstands and bars of Manhattan have a Rosenquist/Rauschenberg style cartoon collage effect. You can almost breathe in this book. His recollections of Cody could be any generic American boy; there's a great universality in every sentence. Visions of Cody is the kind of work that sets him alongside Whitman and his hero, Jack London.
March 18, 2024
Kerouac, America, And The Holy Goof
Jack Kerouac (1922 -- 1969) wrote his long, sprawling book "Visions of Cody" in 1951-52, but the book was not published in full until 1972.. The book shows great nostalgia for a lost America of the 1930s and 1940s. The work is a meditation of Kerouac's friend Neal Cassady (1926 -- 1968), who is called Cody Pomeray in this book. Kerouac portrayed Cassady under the name Dean Moriarty in "On the Road". The book is about Kerouac himself as much as it is about Cody and about America.
The book includes much that is wonderful and much that is exasperating. There is no continuous plot but rather a stream of threads influenced by Proust, among other writers. Much of the book is written in a ranting, stream-of-consciousness style that Kerouac later named "spontaneous prose". Sentences and paragraphs often are long and wandering; words are invented or used in strange ways. The book can be highly difficult to follow. The lives of the protagonists and the vision of a past America connect the story.
Kerouac had an extraordinary eye for painstaking description as shown in much of this book. He paints pictures of diverse places that he or Cody knew, such as Lowell, New York City, San Francisco, Denver, Texas, Mexico City, and towns and rural areas of the Midwest. He offers a portrait of intimate streets, jazz clubs, railroads leading everywhere, fast cars on pre-freeway roads, poolhalls, small diners. The book is full of pot, alcohol, and drugs and raw sexual depictions and terms. There are many short, effective character studies. The book also develops idealized, romanticized pictures of the two main characters, Cody and the narrator. Kerouac biographer Tom Clark aptly describes the book as offering a story of "a tantalizing power that removes one from humdrum existence and takes one on a remarkable voyage".
The narrative sections of "Visions of Cody" frame a long middle portion of the book that consists of Kerouac's transcripts of taped conversations between Cody, himself, and others that took place over five days at Cody's home in San Francisco. The characters are frequently high or drunk and the conversations wander interminably. They have a strong feel of authenticity (the original tapes have been lost) and provide insight into how the characters saw themselves. Unfortunately, they are of mixed interest, go on for too long, and disrupt the flow of the book. The next part of the book, called "Imitation of the Tape" in which Kerouac parodies what he has just done is even worse and tends to bring the book to a halt.
The opening and the closing parts of the book more than compensate for the difficulties in following the tapes. The final section of the book retells in a much more free-flowing impressionistic way the story of the cross-country trips that Kerouac made famous in "On the Road".
What did Kerouac see that inspired his love and devotion for Cody? He is described throughout as a hero and in the final farewell of the book as "Adios, King". Cody was a hustler, thief, and con-man who spent substantial portions of his life in jail. Abandoned by his drunken father, he fended for himself in poolhalls and on the road from a young age. He was, apparently, irresistible to women and used them shamelessly. Cody also was highly intelligent, interested in bettering himself, and had ambitions to learn and to write. Kerouac admired his friend's vitality, sexuality, independence, wanderlust, and ability to take and love whatever life threw his way. Here is how Kerouac introduces Cody and Cody's father in a passage from the second part of this book.
" Around the poolhalls of Denver during World War II, a strange looking boy began to be noticeable to the characters who frequented the places afternoon and night and even to the casual visitors who dropped in for a game of snookers after supper wen all the tables were busy in an atmosphere of smoke and great excitement and a continual parade passed in the alley from the backdoor of one poolroom on Gleanarn Street to the backdoor of another -- a boy called Cody Pomeray, the son of a Larimer Street wino. Where he came from nobody know or at first cared. Older heroes of other generations had darkened the walls of the poolhalls long before Cody got there; memorable eccentrics, great poolsharks, even killers, jazz musicians, raveling salesmen, anonymous frozen bums who came in on winter nights to sit an hour by the heat never to be seen again, among whom (and not to be remembered by anyone because there was no one there to keep a love check on the majority of the boys as they swarmed among themselves year by year with only casual but sometimes haunted recognition of faces, unless strictly local characters from around the corner) was Cody Pomeray, Sr., who in his hobo life that was usually spent stumbling around other parts of town had somehow stumbled in here and sat in the same old bench which was later to be occupied by his son in desperate meditations on life."
Kerouac said: "I'm making myself seek to find the wild form, that can grow with my wild heart" in writing "Visions of Cody". He thought this the best of his books, and, for all the unevenness and frustrating qualities of the work, he may have been right. This is a book for readers with a strong interest in American literature and a passion for Kerouac. It is tempting to think of abridging the book, (it was first published in an abridged form in 1962) but it is best read as Kerouac wrote and conceived it. It is not a good place to start for readers unfamiliar with or with only a casual interest in this writer.
Robin Friedman
Jack Kerouac (1922 -- 1969) wrote his long, sprawling book "Visions of Cody" in 1951-52, but the book was not published in full until 1972.. The book shows great nostalgia for a lost America of the 1930s and 1940s. The work is a meditation of Kerouac's friend Neal Cassady (1926 -- 1968), who is called Cody Pomeray in this book. Kerouac portrayed Cassady under the name Dean Moriarty in "On the Road". The book is about Kerouac himself as much as it is about Cody and about America.
The book includes much that is wonderful and much that is exasperating. There is no continuous plot but rather a stream of threads influenced by Proust, among other writers. Much of the book is written in a ranting, stream-of-consciousness style that Kerouac later named "spontaneous prose". Sentences and paragraphs often are long and wandering; words are invented or used in strange ways. The book can be highly difficult to follow. The lives of the protagonists and the vision of a past America connect the story.
Kerouac had an extraordinary eye for painstaking description as shown in much of this book. He paints pictures of diverse places that he or Cody knew, such as Lowell, New York City, San Francisco, Denver, Texas, Mexico City, and towns and rural areas of the Midwest. He offers a portrait of intimate streets, jazz clubs, railroads leading everywhere, fast cars on pre-freeway roads, poolhalls, small diners. The book is full of pot, alcohol, and drugs and raw sexual depictions and terms. There are many short, effective character studies. The book also develops idealized, romanticized pictures of the two main characters, Cody and the narrator. Kerouac biographer Tom Clark aptly describes the book as offering a story of "a tantalizing power that removes one from humdrum existence and takes one on a remarkable voyage".
The narrative sections of "Visions of Cody" frame a long middle portion of the book that consists of Kerouac's transcripts of taped conversations between Cody, himself, and others that took place over five days at Cody's home in San Francisco. The characters are frequently high or drunk and the conversations wander interminably. They have a strong feel of authenticity (the original tapes have been lost) and provide insight into how the characters saw themselves. Unfortunately, they are of mixed interest, go on for too long, and disrupt the flow of the book. The next part of the book, called "Imitation of the Tape" in which Kerouac parodies what he has just done is even worse and tends to bring the book to a halt.
The opening and the closing parts of the book more than compensate for the difficulties in following the tapes. The final section of the book retells in a much more free-flowing impressionistic way the story of the cross-country trips that Kerouac made famous in "On the Road".
What did Kerouac see that inspired his love and devotion for Cody? He is described throughout as a hero and in the final farewell of the book as "Adios, King". Cody was a hustler, thief, and con-man who spent substantial portions of his life in jail. Abandoned by his drunken father, he fended for himself in poolhalls and on the road from a young age. He was, apparently, irresistible to women and used them shamelessly. Cody also was highly intelligent, interested in bettering himself, and had ambitions to learn and to write. Kerouac admired his friend's vitality, sexuality, independence, wanderlust, and ability to take and love whatever life threw his way. Here is how Kerouac introduces Cody and Cody's father in a passage from the second part of this book.
" Around the poolhalls of Denver during World War II, a strange looking boy began to be noticeable to the characters who frequented the places afternoon and night and even to the casual visitors who dropped in for a game of snookers after supper wen all the tables were busy in an atmosphere of smoke and great excitement and a continual parade passed in the alley from the backdoor of one poolroom on Gleanarn Street to the backdoor of another -- a boy called Cody Pomeray, the son of a Larimer Street wino. Where he came from nobody know or at first cared. Older heroes of other generations had darkened the walls of the poolhalls long before Cody got there; memorable eccentrics, great poolsharks, even killers, jazz musicians, raveling salesmen, anonymous frozen bums who came in on winter nights to sit an hour by the heat never to be seen again, among whom (and not to be remembered by anyone because there was no one there to keep a love check on the majority of the boys as they swarmed among themselves year by year with only casual but sometimes haunted recognition of faces, unless strictly local characters from around the corner) was Cody Pomeray, Sr., who in his hobo life that was usually spent stumbling around other parts of town had somehow stumbled in here and sat in the same old bench which was later to be occupied by his son in desperate meditations on life."
Kerouac said: "I'm making myself seek to find the wild form, that can grow with my wild heart" in writing "Visions of Cody". He thought this the best of his books, and, for all the unevenness and frustrating qualities of the work, he may have been right. This is a book for readers with a strong interest in American literature and a passion for Kerouac. It is tempting to think of abridging the book, (it was first published in an abridged form in 1962) but it is best read as Kerouac wrote and conceived it. It is not a good place to start for readers unfamiliar with or with only a casual interest in this writer.
Robin Friedman
June 22, 2009
This wild, vertically-narrated novel has got some of Kerouac's absolute finest writing, simple, straight, and hugely compassionate. It is also host to some of his worst writing, pages upon pages of drug-addled sketches, a long transcription of a tape made while Jack and Cody was HI, and then an imitation of said tape that goes off the deep end, Kerouac jerking off his typewriter.
Thing is tho, this all builds a complex and abstract (can the novel be simple and abstract? I dunno) picture of the American Man, Cody Pomeray... also allows Kerouac to brood upon the America of dusty lonesome roads and jazz he adored. Kerouac had one hell of a fertile artistic mind, and in Visions of Cody he throws it up onto the page, and it works. If that sounds unpleasant, this may not be the Kerouac for you. However, as a portrait of an artist just blowing and creating, riffing upon America and friendship, it's unparalleled.
The tape transcription runs thusly:
JACK: Cody where is that roach man
CODY: Jack Jack Jack wait listen just hold on, listen, to this guy blow on this piece here it is wild he just pulls it out of his soul,-
JACK: (inhales) now I need me wine
CODY: (intense long story about how he met so-and-so, how he boned so-and-so, or the first time he did speed)
Good stuff!
Thing is tho, this all builds a complex and abstract (can the novel be simple and abstract? I dunno) picture of the American Man, Cody Pomeray... also allows Kerouac to brood upon the America of dusty lonesome roads and jazz he adored. Kerouac had one hell of a fertile artistic mind, and in Visions of Cody he throws it up onto the page, and it works. If that sounds unpleasant, this may not be the Kerouac for you. However, as a portrait of an artist just blowing and creating, riffing upon America and friendship, it's unparalleled.
The tape transcription runs thusly:
JACK: Cody where is that roach man
CODY: Jack Jack Jack wait listen just hold on, listen, to this guy blow on this piece here it is wild he just pulls it out of his soul,-
JACK: (inhales) now I need me wine
CODY: (intense long story about how he met so-and-so, how he boned so-and-so, or the first time he did speed)
Good stuff!
April 22, 2019
Read this book after you've notched several of his earlier published titles for a better fix on Kerouac's venture into experimental collage type fiction. The book assembles writings/fragments, recordings of dialogue, and fused bits/pieces from musings and reworkings of material old/new. It's also and foremost a paean to his Sundance Kid sidekick in kicks Neal Cassidy who together they ride roughshod headlong into the wilds of town and city America as well as old Mexico. The boppy prose bounces down the sadsack roads in jalopy drug-fueled adventures, the same as "On The Road" but even more rickety and deeper into allusions and the awakening to sorrowful joys of existence. Go!
November 2, 2007
I've read a lot of Kerouac with great interest. I can't say that I've been let down by him but frequently his books recede into the same emotional landscape. They all blend together and that seems to be part of his intent.
However, Visions of Cody is un-like any of his other books. One has to go to the likes of James Joyce (specifically Ulysses) and William Faulkner to find such a watershed narrative event in prose.
When I read Vision's of Cody I had more respect then ever for Kerouac's writing. He tried something very brave with this one and its worth it to give it a shot. It is the naked body of On the Road, uninhibited and free.
However, Visions of Cody is un-like any of his other books. One has to go to the likes of James Joyce (specifically Ulysses) and William Faulkner to find such a watershed narrative event in prose.
When I read Vision's of Cody I had more respect then ever for Kerouac's writing. He tried something very brave with this one and its worth it to give it a shot. It is the naked body of On the Road, uninhibited and free.
August 9, 2011
Wow. Complex, dreamlike, sometimes boring, always challenging. Only for those with a strong interest in Kerouac's scene and a familiarity with the outlines of The Great Rememberer's world. I found it compelling, as a whole, though tedious on the micro-level. One of the most honest and powerful attempts to describe and understand male friendship, in a world and at a time when such things were beyond the pale, at least for American men. Kerouac is the taking up the mantle of Walt Whitman here, and singing his song of love in a new century.
September 2, 2013
Sixteen years after I read "On the Road," I tried "Visions of Cody," partly because I had embarked on a road-trip around the Eastern Seaboard, and partly because I wanted to give Kerouac another chance. "On the Road" had been a formative, nearly biblical experience for me, but when I read "Dharma Bums" earlier this year, I found it a little childish. I was afraid that I had completely outgrown the Beats, the way a kid no longer finds amusement in an Etch-a-Sketch.
But "Visions of Cody" was a great surprise: Not only were these "B-side" reflections raw and beautiful, more diary than chronicle, but they also mirrored many of my own movements. He briefly passes through Pittsburgh, the beloved city I just left. He spends time in New York, a section I read at the very time I was hosteling in the Bowery. He jets through Boston, just as I was in Boston. When I read passages on trains or buses, I was also on trains or buses. Some of the language is so thickly eloquent, I started to believe that this was some of his finest prose on the books. The story is particularly watery, and there is no philosophic backdrop, and in a way, I found these omissions relieving.
But "Visions of Cody" was a great surprise: Not only were these "B-side" reflections raw and beautiful, more diary than chronicle, but they also mirrored many of my own movements. He briefly passes through Pittsburgh, the beloved city I just left. He spends time in New York, a section I read at the very time I was hosteling in the Bowery. He jets through Boston, just as I was in Boston. When I read passages on trains or buses, I was also on trains or buses. Some of the language is so thickly eloquent, I started to believe that this was some of his finest prose on the books. The story is particularly watery, and there is no philosophic backdrop, and in a way, I found these omissions relieving.
March 28, 2022
Though not published until 1972, Kerouac wrote the book in 1952. Visions indeed. Experimental, he combines forms, he tries to write like jazz (possibly a contribution to rap), he follows his friendship with Neal Cassady, and he relates all of their wild journeys by car back and forth across America as well as into Mexico. A sort of companion to On the Road.
I was dazzled by his description of American cities and scenes. Kerouac's perception of American life, politics, music is, in my opinion, equal or even better than those satirical verbose writers of the 1950s and 1960s. Take your pick.
Most of all, I discovered the roots of the kind of life I and my first husband were trying to live in the late 1960s. So all the time it took to read Visions of Cody was well spent for me. Those are the years I am writing about now. Loves, friendships, lifestyles, run in seasons. They come and they go. But while they come they are so incredibly intense, especially when one is young.
I was dazzled by his description of American cities and scenes. Kerouac's perception of American life, politics, music is, in my opinion, equal or even better than those satirical verbose writers of the 1950s and 1960s. Take your pick.
Most of all, I discovered the roots of the kind of life I and my first husband were trying to live in the late 1960s. So all the time it took to read Visions of Cody was well spent for me. Those are the years I am writing about now. Loves, friendships, lifestyles, run in seasons. They come and they go. But while they come they are so incredibly intense, especially when one is young.
March 3, 2013
Of all Kerouacs great novels, ON THE ROAD, THE SUBTERRANEANS, THE DHARMA BUMS...the level of quality of the prose in this one is consistently amazing. It is a dense, melancholy novel that flashes between a stark, lonely New York with forlorn ambitions and a sort of jazzy, but haunted hobo Denver...so many great moments throughout and the last 100 pages of the book read like an amazing prose poem. For all Denverites it is a MUST becuase its in this novel Jack really pays homage to Neal Cassady's hometown in all its Cow Town glory with billiard halls, pick up football games, dirty barber shops, bakc alleys, dry hot summer days and boyos cruising and on the make on that great spectacle of an American Saturday night. I enjoyed the hell out of this one after having not read Kerouac for a long time and it was like a late night whiskified visit from an old friend...
July 9, 2020
"It was dawn; he lay on the hard reformatory bed and decided to start reading books in the library so he would never be a bum, no matter what he worked at to make a living, which was the decision of a great idealist."
Knights of the Road
https://youtu.be/SQKclkBD7F0
Knights of the Road
https://youtu.be/SQKclkBD7F0
September 27, 2010
The flip-side to On the Road. It's long, it's frustrating and by turns pretentious and sublime. It's bars, diners, movie-house balconies, red-brick buildings, bums, girls, highways and Joan Rawshanks in the Fog. It's a long rambling patchwork of tapes, scribbles and notebooks written by a romantic bent on self-destruction.
Why do I like Visions of Cody so much? Maybe simply because I read it at the right time in life. One of those books we all have that did it for us.
Read On the Road first, then maybe the Dharma Bums or Desolation Angels. Then Cody will be there "rushing and gliding like Groucho Marx in heaven" whenever you feel like taking the ride.
Why do I like Visions of Cody so much? Maybe simply because I read it at the right time in life. One of those books we all have that did it for us.
Read On the Road first, then maybe the Dharma Bums or Desolation Angels. Then Cody will be there "rushing and gliding like Groucho Marx in heaven" whenever you feel like taking the ride.
February 3, 2017
This one was quite the journey...much more difficult than any of Kerouac's works I've read before but essential if you want to get to know Kerouac as a writer.
August 18, 2020
A mess of a book, some unbearable, some brilliant. At times I did not think I would finish, other times, I didn't want it to end.
December 7, 2022
Ah! Not really too sure if this book is possible to be rated on any ordinary rating system, belongs with Finnegans Wake and In Search of Lost Time.This is the Proust, Joyce, of America. A work to read after reading a bunch of Kerouac – to finally absorb and understand everything, a history and symphony for the beats – a confession, a tragedy, a great mad laugh, a long sorrow of the soul. It’s a beautiful book, especially the first three hundred pages, skimmed through the rest, as I don’t have the time and needed energy to get through it at the moment, but go for it. Come in and out of if ready to live and to love and to fuck and to sing and to die.
December 10, 2012
This book is the definition of "bromance". It is quite funny that in the introduction Ginsberg says that Jack and Neil would probably both have benefited from a more "physical" relationship. But this book is such a labour of love. All the things that Jack loves best about America summed up in Neil Cassady. When reading it in places I got the feeling that "Cody" was Coyote of American myth, particularly in a more modern urban setting. Kerouac's prose was astounding in this, sentances going on and on gloriously. Even while talking about horrible things your just surrounded by so much beauty that it doesn't matter, everything becomes glorious. I'm really glad I read Carolyn Cassady's biography first as it really put everything in context, particularly the tapes of Neil and Jack drunk and high. The tapes are so perfect. It's fascinating to see the way different drugs and booze made them act differently. The first night stoned off their asses where they can't remember for more than a few sentances what they're talking about, (like a very humourous early podcast) to the last night where Jack practically passes out and Neil ends up rambling away with Carolyn only half listening. It's de-mythifying in a way, did anyone need to know about the warts on Jack's dick? But honest and insightfull. I'm sure so many essays have been written about the tapes. But then honestly that's missing the point because it's the night that you sit around chatting with your closest friends and the absurd stuff that you come up with. And it was interesting to hear them discuss the tragedy of June, their previous adventures and mispent youth. It reminded me of people who no longer do all the things they used to but remember how great the past was. (Despite being filled with theives, murderes, drug addicts...) And there are really touching moments, not only Jack's confession of love, but when he mentions that he thinks he's becoming an alcoholic and Neal says he knows, and then the subject drops. Or when they sit around wondering how Burroughs will die, and it's tragic cause they both end up dying so much sooner. And then there's another beautiful chaotic prose section again, with so much insight and love. It's funny cause I don't think Neil was as great as Jack did but I can read Jack writing about him and love it. There's no story here just chaos around a character and it's gorgeous. I borrowed this book from the library but will definitely have to buy my own copy as there's just so much in here it'll keep me busy for years. This might end up being the book that is the one that's the answer to the "if you were stuck on a desert island and could only bring one book what would it be?" As novels or stories I like other books of Kerouac's better. But this one is vast and fantastic and will definitely need a lot of re-reading.
February 2, 2012
Either a 1* or a 5* considering that this had by turns some of the most masturbatory & misogynist (seriously, women in here are either silent or elevated to the form of mythos and grandeur of some sort) benzo'd & stoned ramblings ever written, & yet-- so much attention & intention given to the lost forgotten wild mania of America & the picayune that makes it just a really fucking big novel, of, yes, visions. However scattered & abstruse.
So uhh three stars or something. Would not recommend anyone else actually read this unless for a class or if you still believe that Whitman / Kerouac's America still exists, which even Kerouac himself knew that it was not, the freighthopping & hitchhiking just the detritus from post-war general sympathies and gung-ho neighborliness. My vision of Cody is that I'll get stabbed if I try and hitch a ride even 20 miles down the road. Yipe!
So uhh three stars or something. Would not recommend anyone else actually read this unless for a class or if you still believe that Whitman / Kerouac's America still exists, which even Kerouac himself knew that it was not, the freighthopping & hitchhiking just the detritus from post-war general sympathies and gung-ho neighborliness. My vision of Cody is that I'll get stabbed if I try and hitch a ride even 20 miles down the road. Yipe!
June 6, 2012
I may only have enjoyed 30 pages of this. Most of it is drugged out stupidity. Cody and Jack both struck me as complete assholes.
The only good things I take away from this book are the memories of where I was when I read it. The first half I read curled up in bed beside Sean. The second half I read on the boat trip around Komodo National park.
The only good things I take away from this book are the memories of where I was when I read it. The first half I read curled up in bed beside Sean. The second half I read on the boat trip around Komodo National park.
July 13, 2021
Kerouac at his most challenging - this nearly-plotless novel runs the linguistic gamut from stoned gibberish to dense, richly poetic ruminations on love, friendship, and the passage of time. The beautiful passages - and there are a great many of these - more than counterbalance the spliff-addled, less-than-entirely-lucid moments. Read it out loud.
January 23, 2017
This was a strange one. At times the writing was inspired and fantastic, and then it could be so tedious. Same themes and cast of characters as in On the Road, but uneven. Highly recommended to Kerouac fans for the sections of great writing (which even made me LOL literally a couple of times) and for historical reasons. Non-fans will probably hate it.
February 19, 2020
This novel is Kerouac at his best and worst. At times this narrative pulls you along with the power of On The Road or the Dharma Bums. There are too many words though. I understand what Jack was trying to do, in the end he succeeds. He gives us as clear a description as anyone could of that complex, amazingly interesting friend of his Cody ( Neal ). I am not sorry I read it, but outside of Big Sur , it is the only Kerouac novel I had to struggle to get through.
March 16, 2023
“Tenderness has no room; tenderness has no sadness. Cody is sad. He makes us sad”
August 26, 2018
Throughout my reading life I had always stayed away from Jack Kerouac. I just didn't think the two of us would mesh will together. So when "Visions of Cody" came up in a quasi book club I am in, I groaned but I was also a little excited. Maybe I could have been wrong all this time about Kerouac. Maybe with my prejudices against him as a person, maybe I had robbed myself of some great thought provoking writing. Oh, this book provoked some thoughts, mainly about how right my previous assessments were during the course of my life.
Oh Kerouac, the macho drunk, the hero of male MFA students across the country. There is so much to dislike about this book. First, there is just the tired viewpoint of the drunk as hero. When I drank I sort of idolized Bukowski and when I got sober I started to realize that he was not a great writer, but he had the capacity to throw some good quotable sentences out there every once in awhile. A lot of us go through this phase but eventually we get it together. Kerouac never got it together. Another grating part about this book is the racist jazz parts. Jack and the boys think it is so cool to talk at length about jazz and have their token jazz friends but guess what? Surprise! They are still referred to as the N-word. Just furthering that ugly notion of people of color as great entertainers but not actual people. Yeah, it was a different time, but you know what I am tired of celebrating this type of nonsense just because it was a different time. Jack, you were just a small chromosome away from being a classic bro.
So other than being a perpetual man-child, drunk and racist, the actual content of the book does not make you feel any better. The writing is experimental but it just does not work. Sort of a weird sequel to "On The Road" the publisher makes Jack change the names of the characters probably in the effort to hide the fact that Kerouac writes about the same shit over and over again. The book is divided into three parts. The first 60 or so pages are just stream of consciousness ramblings with no structure, flitting from one subject to the next. I get the concept, these are thoughts sort of racing through a distorted mind, quickly jumping from one subject to the next. I can see why folks can dig his writing though. Occasionally like Bukowski, a really beautiful descriptive sentence will jump out at you from all the nonsense. The second part of the book is literally hundreds of pages of Kerouac tape recording himself and Neil Cassady (the Cody of the title) and some other drunks rambling, usually nonsensically, about other times in their life when they were drunk. What a egotistical, bold idea! To be that self centred to think that readers would want to read literal, verbatim drunk ramblings that go on for days. I am quite astounded that people DO want to read this. Penguin calls it a "modern classic" and its taught by MFA professors molding creative writing minds. The third part of the book is "Imitation Of The Tape" and well I am just going to leave it there. I mean, do you really need to read any more. I tell you one thing though. You did not beat me Kerouac. During the course of this book, I hated reading it and dreaded it. But I decided I was going to read every single page of this nonsense looking for something tangible and worthwhile to hold on to. I did it. I read all 465 pages. You didn't beat me Jack. I didn't quit. I didn't skim. And in the end I don't chalk it up to an entirely bad experience. For one it makes me treasure my sobriety all the more. Two, now I know for a fact, I don't like Kerouac and will never be tempted to read anything of his ever again. And three, I have read most of the beat generation writers now and know that their messy, drunk, racist prose is just not for me. I'm done with y'all beats.
Oh Kerouac, the macho drunk, the hero of male MFA students across the country. There is so much to dislike about this book. First, there is just the tired viewpoint of the drunk as hero. When I drank I sort of idolized Bukowski and when I got sober I started to realize that he was not a great writer, but he had the capacity to throw some good quotable sentences out there every once in awhile. A lot of us go through this phase but eventually we get it together. Kerouac never got it together. Another grating part about this book is the racist jazz parts. Jack and the boys think it is so cool to talk at length about jazz and have their token jazz friends but guess what? Surprise! They are still referred to as the N-word. Just furthering that ugly notion of people of color as great entertainers but not actual people. Yeah, it was a different time, but you know what I am tired of celebrating this type of nonsense just because it was a different time. Jack, you were just a small chromosome away from being a classic bro.
So other than being a perpetual man-child, drunk and racist, the actual content of the book does not make you feel any better. The writing is experimental but it just does not work. Sort of a weird sequel to "On The Road" the publisher makes Jack change the names of the characters probably in the effort to hide the fact that Kerouac writes about the same shit over and over again. The book is divided into three parts. The first 60 or so pages are just stream of consciousness ramblings with no structure, flitting from one subject to the next. I get the concept, these are thoughts sort of racing through a distorted mind, quickly jumping from one subject to the next. I can see why folks can dig his writing though. Occasionally like Bukowski, a really beautiful descriptive sentence will jump out at you from all the nonsense. The second part of the book is literally hundreds of pages of Kerouac tape recording himself and Neil Cassady (the Cody of the title) and some other drunks rambling, usually nonsensically, about other times in their life when they were drunk. What a egotistical, bold idea! To be that self centred to think that readers would want to read literal, verbatim drunk ramblings that go on for days. I am quite astounded that people DO want to read this. Penguin calls it a "modern classic" and its taught by MFA professors molding creative writing minds. The third part of the book is "Imitation Of The Tape" and well I am just going to leave it there. I mean, do you really need to read any more. I tell you one thing though. You did not beat me Kerouac. During the course of this book, I hated reading it and dreaded it. But I decided I was going to read every single page of this nonsense looking for something tangible and worthwhile to hold on to. I did it. I read all 465 pages. You didn't beat me Jack. I didn't quit. I didn't skim. And in the end I don't chalk it up to an entirely bad experience. For one it makes me treasure my sobriety all the more. Two, now I know for a fact, I don't like Kerouac and will never be tempted to read anything of his ever again. And three, I have read most of the beat generation writers now and know that their messy, drunk, racist prose is just not for me. I'm done with y'all beats.
May 26, 2013
"No possible way of avoiding enigmas. Like people in cafeterias smile when they're arriving and sitting down at the table but when they're leaving, when in unison their chairs scrape back they pick up their coats and things with glum faces (all of them the same degree of semi-glumness which is a special glumness that is disappointed that the promise of the first arriving smiling moment didn't come out or if it did it died after a short life)--and during that short life which has the same blind unconscious quality as the orgasm, everything is happening to all their souls--this is the GO--the summation pinnacle possible in human relationships--lasts a second--the vibratory message is on--yet it's not so mystic either, it's love and sympathy in a flash. Similarly, we who make the mad night all the way (four-way sex orgies, three-day conversations, uninterrupted transcontinental drives) have that momentary glumness that advertises the need for sleep we can call it up again mixing it with unlimited other beautiful combinations--shuffle the old file cards of the soul in demented hallucinated sleep--So the people in the cafeteria have that look but only until their hats and things are picked up, because the glumness is also a signal they send one another, a kind of "Goodnight Ladies" of perhaps interior heart politeness. What kind of friend would grin openly in the faces of his friends when it's the time for glum coatpicking and bending to leave? So it's a sign of "Now we're leaving this table which had promised so much--this is our obsequy to the sad." The glumness goes as soon as someone says something and they head for the door--laughing they fling back echoes to the scene of their human disaster--they go off down the street in the new air provided by the world. Ah the mad hearts of us all."
"I'm in love with my life and I'm sticking to it--I mean the belief in it. I may be a distracted wretch but I am still a man and I know how to fight and survive, I have before. Gods, if not help me, if instead barb me, be careful of me, I can catch thunderbolts and pull you down and have done it before. Adieu!"
"I'm in love with my life and I'm sticking to it--I mean the belief in it. I may be a distracted wretch but I am still a man and I know how to fight and survive, I have before. Gods, if not help me, if instead barb me, be careful of me, I can catch thunderbolts and pull you down and have done it before. Adieu!"
October 23, 2022
This is a strange book. It is disjointed and experimental. It barely makes sense and, at times, it will frustrate you. That being said, it is a good book, with some editing, I believe it could have been a great book even!
This book could be divided into 5 parts, so I will proceed to tell you something about each one of them.
Chapter 1
Jack going around New York being observant and stuff. This is by far the dullest part of the book. If you find the patience to get through it, it is only up from there.
Chapter 2
Jack constructs the myth of Cody.
Chapter 3 - The Tape
The first part of chapter 3 is a straight-up transcript of the tapes which are largely Jack and Cody talking while high on tea and wine. This is easily the best part of the book and I wanted it to go on forever. I myself have played with the idea of doing this sort of convo to text thing and seeing it executed so well fills me up with courage. As for the contents of the tapes, Jack and Cody had such a great dynamic that it is hard not to find something profound in every one of their sentences. The conversations are raw, direct, vulnerable, and seeing as this is not common, especially in male friendships, reading their words warmed my heart. If you cannot be bothered to read the whole book, at least read this part.
Chapter 3 - Imitation of the Tape
The second part of chapter 3 is a mixture of Jack's relentless admiration for Cody and some of their adventures. This part is by far the most experimental and obscure, but somehow retains a certain air of vulnerability and paints a rather abstract image of Jack's love towards Cody. There is something here in Jack's writing that leaves you with a certain degree of understanding for his need to mythologize Cody and makes you wonder whether you will ever find someone like that, or, perhaps, once you reflect, whether there might have already been someone like that.
The Visions of The Great Rememberer
I appreciated this chapter for what it was. Allen Ginsberg attempting to shed some light on the meaning of particular passages and their significance in the larger Duluoz canon. It was truly helpful.
This book could be divided into 5 parts, so I will proceed to tell you something about each one of them.
Chapter 1
Jack going around New York being observant and stuff. This is by far the dullest part of the book. If you find the patience to get through it, it is only up from there.
Chapter 2
Jack constructs the myth of Cody.
Chapter 3 - The Tape
The first part of chapter 3 is a straight-up transcript of the tapes which are largely Jack and Cody talking while high on tea and wine. This is easily the best part of the book and I wanted it to go on forever. I myself have played with the idea of doing this sort of convo to text thing and seeing it executed so well fills me up with courage. As for the contents of the tapes, Jack and Cody had such a great dynamic that it is hard not to find something profound in every one of their sentences. The conversations are raw, direct, vulnerable, and seeing as this is not common, especially in male friendships, reading their words warmed my heart. If you cannot be bothered to read the whole book, at least read this part.
Chapter 3 - Imitation of the Tape
The second part of chapter 3 is a mixture of Jack's relentless admiration for Cody and some of their adventures. This part is by far the most experimental and obscure, but somehow retains a certain air of vulnerability and paints a rather abstract image of Jack's love towards Cody. There is something here in Jack's writing that leaves you with a certain degree of understanding for his need to mythologize Cody and makes you wonder whether you will ever find someone like that, or, perhaps, once you reflect, whether there might have already been someone like that.
The Visions of The Great Rememberer
I appreciated this chapter for what it was. Allen Ginsberg attempting to shed some light on the meaning of particular passages and their significance in the larger Duluoz canon. It was truly helpful.
February 1, 2014
This is not the book for a new-comer to Kerouac; it can be tough going. I confess that I nearly stopped reading it about halfway through, and I've been on a steady diet of Kerouac since last March. I'm glad I stayed with it.
The book can be considered a companion to On the Road because Visions of Cody explores the Dean Moriarty (called Cody Pomeray in Visions) character and the friendship he and Kerouac (Jack Duluoz) shared. That friendship was at its strongest in the years covered by On the Road. Once those years had passed the relationship faded. To paraphrase Cody Pomeray in Visions, "What do we have to talk about together? We've already said it all."
This comes as a great loss to Kerouac (as Duluoz), whose life has been filled with losses of one kind or another. Some of the saddest stuff I've ever read comes in the last third of the book, when Jack Duluoz realizes that he and Cody have drifted apart. The end of the book is an elegy to a friendship Kerouac cherished. It has come to an end, as all things must.
The transcripts of conversations between Jack and Cody can be hard to get through. Kerouac wanted to get everything down on paper, avoiding as much as possible the filtering and self-editing a writer does even when doing a rough draft. There is no underlying organizational principle in these sections; much is said, then said again, and the conversation can be frustratingly self-referential. But the reward for the person who remains patient and "listens" to the improvisatory, be-bop flow of ideas exchanged between Jack and Cody is a deeper appreciation for Kerouac the man and the writer, a man who said he was born to write, who was possessed of a deep, sensitive, and empathetic nature and brilliant writing talent.
The book can be considered a companion to On the Road because Visions of Cody explores the Dean Moriarty (called Cody Pomeray in Visions) character and the friendship he and Kerouac (Jack Duluoz) shared. That friendship was at its strongest in the years covered by On the Road. Once those years had passed the relationship faded. To paraphrase Cody Pomeray in Visions, "What do we have to talk about together? We've already said it all."
This comes as a great loss to Kerouac (as Duluoz), whose life has been filled with losses of one kind or another. Some of the saddest stuff I've ever read comes in the last third of the book, when Jack Duluoz realizes that he and Cody have drifted apart. The end of the book is an elegy to a friendship Kerouac cherished. It has come to an end, as all things must.
The transcripts of conversations between Jack and Cody can be hard to get through. Kerouac wanted to get everything down on paper, avoiding as much as possible the filtering and self-editing a writer does even when doing a rough draft. There is no underlying organizational principle in these sections; much is said, then said again, and the conversation can be frustratingly self-referential. But the reward for the person who remains patient and "listens" to the improvisatory, be-bop flow of ideas exchanged between Jack and Cody is a deeper appreciation for Kerouac the man and the writer, a man who said he was born to write, who was possessed of a deep, sensitive, and empathetic nature and brilliant writing talent.
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